I don’t think humanity is going to continue to agree to what is government approved torturing of people who have already undergone trauma. I don’t think humanity wants to be inhumane. So eventually those people who have altered states of consciousness and unusual sensory experiences won’t be subjected to a forced psychiatric regime, by the fearful public, who if they were better would never approve of such things as ECT and forced drugging.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Two million people tortured every year in Australia’s
psychiatric hospitals. How can anyone ignore that?! That’s 10 per cent of the
Australian population. How is it that despite the United Nations, agreeing that
forced drugging and electro-shock and other inhumane psychiatric treatments are
torture, so much of the population is in denial that this is happening?

The government stats on how many people are tortured in
psychiatric ‘hospitals’ are here:

·‘In
2007–08, around 12% of people aged 18 years and over experienced high or very
high levels of psychological distress and a further 21% experienced moderate
levels of psychological distress (similar to 2001 and 2004–05 rates).’

David Oaks says because wenot just the 99% ‘We are the 100%’ because
those harmed by psychiatry are inclusive of all humans, (yes, and other
animals, if you want to know, I might add.) http://www.mindfreedom.org/mfi-faq/go/now

‘Despite the significant
strides made in the development of norms for the abolition of forced
psychiatric interventions on the basis of disability alone as a form of torture
and ill-treatment and the authoritative guidance provided by the CRPD, severe
abuses continue to be committed in health-care settings where choices by people
with disabilities are often overridden based on their supposed “best
interests”, and where serious violations and discrimination against persons
with disabilities may be masked as “good intentions” of health-care
professionals.’

Do not deny this is
happening. The evidence is all too obvious. Psychiatric forced drugging,
electro shock and other cruel and humane practices are not ‘care’ or in anyway
about ‘health’.

Please sign my petition to
stop this torture in the guise of psychiatric 'care' from continuing to happen in our government's name. Help us also gain an apology for psychiatric abuse ever having occurred.

That said,
I am aware that the Socialist
Alliance has this written on their website, ‘The Socialist Alliance will
guarantee patients' control by legislating the right of access to all
information required for informed consent; the right to appoint a legal
guardian of a patient's choice; the right to choose or refuse medical
treatment; the right to choose contraception appropriate to the patient and
abortion as required. Hospitals to be forced to admit their surgical,
pharmacological and other nosocomial mistakes as a matter of due process.’

This sounds promising, but they are
not running in either Senate for Victoria, or House of Reps in Melbourne Ports.
They are, however, running in other electorates.

These are the replies I got
for my electorate in regards to stopping psychiatric abuse:

'Hi
Initially,

Thanks and
this was brought to my attention prior to last (2010) election. We are most
definitely against such forced treatments. I seem to recall we put out a media
release against it at the time. My own Solicitor had been involved in legal
cases, representing those forced to undergo such treatment against their will.

Please do
your best to spread the word and get our vote up.

It will be
simple for voting the Liberal Democrats into the Senate for NSW; we drew number
1 on the ballot paper!

The WLP is a party of transparency,
accountability and justice. We are against
unnecessary interference with the liberty of the subject. This would
include unwarranted intrusions into peoples' health on spurious scientific
grounds. While we do not have a specific platform on forced drugging and
electro-shock, rest assured that the senators, once elected, will ensure that
whole sectors of society, including psychiatric practice, will come up for
scrutiny and exposure, as it arises.

Senator Online believe as I do that the community has a
right to have their voice heard in the Senate. For too long we have heard
Politicians from both sides of the divide, tell us what they think is
best for the Community. A vote for SOL will give the voice to the people.
Should the majority of the community agree with any particular issue, then they
will be supported by SOL.

We are not a traditional political organisation with
policies that are influenced by party politics, or by vocal minorities, or
subject to doing "deals". We are about putting the voice of the
majority above special interest groups. We will be the voice of the silent
majority!!

The Party is
proactive.

• SOL
will promote and submit Bills to Parliament as they are supported by a clear
majority of the public.

• You
will be able to cast a vote and influence Bills in Parliament directly through
the Senator Online Website or App.

• SOL
will provide balanced information and the pros and cons on each Bill. You will
have clear awareness of what is going on in Parliament, enabling you to engage
and act.

• In the
future, you will be able to collaboratively create and vote on Bills with other
members of the public through a "wiki".

SOL MPs and Senators will submit Bills that
are supported by the clear majority of their constituency.

• We
stand for giving the public a clear voice on each and every Bill and important
issue, putting "democratic" back in democracy and making the
deliberations universally accessible. We believe in providing people with the
opportunity to have their voice heard on every Bill and issue that is being
debated in Parliament.

• Equally
importantly, we stand for the power of informed debate. By using the unmatched
"enabler" of information — the internet — we seek to prompt informed
debate on the issues that are important to the majority of Australians.

Our policies will be determined by the clear majority view of
Australians. In the future, you will be able to collaboratively develop
and vote on Bills with other members of the public through a "wiki".

SOL is best described as a directional party, that will aid our government.

PROTECTING THE VULNERABLE

Whether in
prison, immigration detention or psychiatric facilities, people held in detention
are particularly powerless and vulnerable. The Greens believe that all
detainees have a right to be treated humanely and with dignity.

The Optional
Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) is an international
agreement designed to protect people in detention from cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment. It ensures that these facilities can be
independently monitored and inspected. We will commit $15 million over the next
four years to ratify the convention and protect the vulnerable in detention.

Janet Rice

Victorian Greens
Lead Senate Candidate

As you
probably know, Greens Senator Richard Di Natale is a medical doctor and has
been responsible for many important initiatives - re preventative health,
problem gambling, junk food.

I am not
aware of any specific actions re abuse, but in general the Greens work and
policies on mental health issues is very strong and supportive, standing up for
more funding and some important specific initiatives.

Those
against psychiatric torture regimes comprise of at least 5% of the vote. This
could be a major win for a party or independant. Those who are ignorant and
could be made aware of this major abuse of human-rights, comprise of more than 20% of the vote.

Psychiatric
survivors, activists, compassionate individuals, those diagnosed and incarcerated
in hospitals for no crime… our voice needs to be heard, recognised, validated
and the horror of psychiatric abuse needs to stop. We have the United
Nations backing us. Why do Australian political parties that have policies
regarding human-rights claim such ignorance of what happens on their doorstep?
of what can happen to anyone who goes through trauma, crisis who doesn’t get
enough support and validation for their suffering?

Psychiatric
abuse needs to stop. I want parties who will back us, who advertise this policy
to stop psychiatric abuse properly. I want politicians who are loud and clear
that they will stop force-drugging, electro-shock and other invasive
procedures. It will be a major win for whoever does this. Whoever goes into
hospitals and lets those being tortured by psychiatrists know that they should
vote, because their party is going to stop the horror of psychiatric abuse.

I
am surprised so many Australians still believe that biological psychiatry, is
the social-psychiatry of Hollywood movies. No, psychiatrists rarely talk or
listen to patients, they mandate, brainwash and forcefully drug and
electrocute. They forcefully inject and electrocute those grieving the loss of their loved-ones,
with major tranquilisers, that cause brain-damage and other disabling. It is
not okay to do this to asylum seekers, Greens, hint, hint... I want clarity on
that, that you will not send psychiatrists to forcefully drug refugees, like
you have promised to do. They are people who have obviously been through trauma
and adversity, they are detained and suffering, they are in crisis, they need
to talk with people would are empathetic, who listen and enable them to have
courage to live, who are trustworthy professionals that will help anchor their
crisis in some sort of consensual reality, that allows for diversity. People
that will give them hope and ways to cope, so they don't despair and wonder what reality actually is. They are people who really don't need their minds policed by psychiatrists, who will forcefully torture them with drugs and electro-shock, then demand that they agree that they are 'mentally ill' and need to take the 'recommended dose of meds' that is harming them unendurably. That's what psychiatrists do, they don't listen, they experiment and police diversity, unless they specifically state that they are social-psychiatry, that they do psychoanalysis and only prescribe drugs when a patient really wants that. Understand that pollies!Attorney-General's Department: Stop psychiatric abuse and gain an apology for it ever having occurred

·Mandatory
informing of harmful effects of psych drugs, withdrawal effects of drugs. Psychiatrists who do not inform their patients should be legally liable.

·Allow
for people grieving, particularly those involved in bushfires. Don’t give them
a psychiatric label as if there is something wrong with them! Get
person-centred empathetic counselling to help people move through their trauma. Give them some help through Centrelink until they're rehabilitated. Don't necessitate that they agree that they have a 'mental illness'. Grief and trauma are not illness, but they do play havoc with people's lives. The more support a person gets the better, quicker they are able to be enabled.

·Fund
businesses to set up retreats for people to overcome emotional crisis. (Some people who suffer crisis actually do have money, but there aren't enough such retreats available even for money to buy, at present, in this country.)

·Allow
those suffering to speak publically about their experiences so that those
suffering similarly can feel that they are being heard. Don’t shut down what is
hard to listen to. Allow psychiatric survivors to gain the public's ear and be witnessed and validated.

·Government
needs to cease psychiatric abuse immediately. Dismantle the systems that
perpetuated the abuse for decades and apologise.

·Voices
and other percipience needs to be understood better by the public, so there isn’t
fear/ stigma in relating to unusual, strange symbolism.

·Access
to career development/ therapy for those who don’t fit into conventional job
roles easily, who may also be isolated/ alienated from the community. Allowing for intelligent invention. (Many people with diagnosis are actually educated and talented, just need to work through their inventions with others so they can be grounded in what society needs, so these innovations can come to fruition.)

·Cease
funding psychiatry, but fund those who need to withdraw/ stay on psych drugs
because that’s what they’re used to and can’t afford the stress of not having
what they’re used to.

Set up Open Dialogue, that has proven results in other countries, as well as Voice Dialoguing, also proven to work in helping a person recover from crisis. (This will be far less expensive than hospitalisation and psychiatric services, pharmaceuticals etc in the long run.)

(Something like that. The Human Dignity Party should be open to anyone who wishes to add, or comment on that list. The Human Dignity Party should listen and support diversity, social-justice, difference and much needed change.)

But there is no Human Dignity Party in Australia as far as I know... So who do I vote for on my birthday?

Labor? bugger them… they use the
term ‘mentally ill’

‘Mental Health

In May 2011,
Labor announced a $2.2 billion mental health package to be rolled
out over five years. It includes: more and better coordinated services for the
severely mentally ill, expanded community mental health programs, more funding
for psychological services, e-mental health, expanded youth-focused programs
and a Mental Health Commission to produce an annual Mental Health Report Card.
The Coalition says the package borrowed heavily from its 2010 election
promises. Health spokesman Peter Dutton told the ABC in June that the Coalition would be
"reassessing" mental health policy, and would make announcements
closer to the election.’

The Greens? (usually get my
vote,but…)

The Greens say,
aren’t we good we’ll get psychiatric treatment for refugees.

Is the Greens
party completely ignorant of what peak psychiatric bodies and their
psychiatrists do for a living? Are they completely ignorant of how torturous
forced drugging with neuroleptics is? Does the Greens party not know these
psych drugs and electro-shock cause brain-damage? How horrible! How stupid! Do
that not know how many angry people will now not vote for them because of their
cruel policy medicalising trauma? Do they never hear angry psychiatric
survivors speak? Are they that ignorant of the human-rights needs in this
country? Human rights that don’t take money, but just need ugly rich
psychiatrists no longer allowed to experiment on people with torturous
chemicals. Yes, experiment, all patients of psychiatrists in hospitals, have the information about them, go into charts and
stats, without their knowledge, against their will.

‘REFUGEE
HEALTH AND WELLBEING

The old parties are risking the health and wellbeing of thousands of
refugees, including children, by dumping them in appalling conditions in Nauru
and Papua New Guinea. A caring nation looks after people fleeing persecution
and their physical and mental health.

In the rush to set up cruel detention camps and slum cities, there is no
plan for independent oversight of refugees’ health and care. The old parties
are committed to dumping all refugees who come by boat out-of-sight,
out-of-mind in the poorest nations in our region, with no safeguards for their
medical and mental health needs.

Reports from whistle-blowers and the UNHCR already tell us that
conditions in the camps are harsh and dangerously inadequate, but there is no
transparency about what is happening in Australia’s name.’

Greens… um, this means
you will be subjecting refugees to forced drugging. That’s what RANZCP,
Australia’s peak psychiatric body does. You do know that don’t you? Why would
you subject traumatised people to the torture of neuroleptics and other
psychiatric drugs?

I’m searching, searching, searching for a Senate Candidate that wants to
stop psychiatric abuse. Who the hell am I going to vote for? The UN has
declared forced psychiatric drugging and electro-shock as torture. Even Israel
has stopped forced electro-shock. Australia continues, oblivious, ignorant…
calling it ‘care’.

Australia is so
dumbed down, it can’t hear our voices. Pathetic. I’m ashamed of this country.

I really have no
one to vote for.Or so I thought...Just putting an after-thought in this blog, because I have found,The Socialist Alliance says it, 'will guarantee patients'
control by legislating the right of access to all information required for
informed consent; the right to appoint a legal guardian of a patient's choice;
the right to choose or refuse medical treatment; the right to choose
contraception appropriate to the patient and abortion as required. Hospitals to
be forced to admit their surgical, pharmacological and other nosocomial
mistakes as a matter of due process.’But none for the Socialist Alliance are standing in the House of Representatives in my area. And none for Senate in my state. Boo. I still have no one to vote for.

Friday, August 23, 2013

McSherry brought up a slide on
‘a recent report submitted to
the United Nations Human Rights Council by the United Nations Special
Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment.’

A large portion of the audience started
coughing.

Coughing
can mean the audience that wants to listen, misses words. It's very disruptive and loud. It is also something
I recognise from my decade or so working in theatre. For an actor hearing
raucous coughing from an audience, they know it is an old and deliberate way of
members of the audience showing disapproval.

Disapproval of those in law trying to stop
torture? Excuse me?!

The coughing, from those in suits, stopped being as vigorous as soon
as the slide changed.

Yes, I understand sometimes people get a tickle
in their throat. But, this wasn’t some poor fellow feeling embarrassed about
their involuntary noise. This was about people making loud noises over the top
of the speaker, deliberately, a large group of them, heckling, thinking they
could then pretend it wasn’t deliberate.

Or maybe, those people that coughed, have a
psychosomatic reaction when someone accuses them of being professional torturers?
(not that McSherry did, but the quote from the UN more or less does, if you
think about it.)

I appreciate what TheMHS is doing, but it was
sometimes those asking the questions on the floor that I was happier hearing
from. I feel there is far too much focus on establishment, those who are toeing
lines and hedging their bets… not enough actual listening to psychiatric
survivors, not enough allowing of psychiatric survivors to speak of the looming monsters that are allowed, via our government, to rule our lives (who assault us further with ad campaigns using their terminology of abuse.)

Any commission into mental health needs to be
run by those with recent lived-experience of what psychiatric services do,
because they know how it feels to be under this regime, of yes, torture. Yet
those with lived-experience are only deputy commissioners in Australia.

There were speakers blathering on about
patients making Advanced Directives, but there was little understanding of how
to get psychiatrists to follow these unless they said exactly what a
psychiatrist wanted to hear.

I did that. A GP I got discharged
to in 2012, when I was off a treatment order (CTO), asked me some questions on
what she should do if I became ‘unwell’. I just said what I knew would sound
compliant, so I wouldn’t be put back on a CTO. It was not what I wished. Ask
anyone on a CTO, or anyone who has recently been on one questions about ‘care’
and they’ll just spout what they think will mean they won’t get put back on a
CTO. They’ll also tell you that they’re satisfied with their treatment, when
they really, really HATE the treatment, think it DOES NOT WORK and would not
wish anyone else to suffer it.

The diagnosed get told that they must agree that they
have a ‘mental illness’ that they ‘must be compliant with treatment’ etc… and they
know what happens if they don’t parrot what the psychiatrist wants them to
parrot, they get increased dosages, or another medication added to their daily
swallow, or the depot, or electro-shock, or forced ‘hospitalisation’.

If I coughed at everything that upset me, to
show my disapproval, I’d have a very raw throat!

That said, TheMHS is a progressive
conference, but I sat back feeling somewhat hurt because my view was not on
stage, that is, until some lovely audience members got up and said their piece.
Put a smile on my face to have my thoughts spoken so clearly. I wished they
were the ones on the panel on the stage. I think in future, the panels should
include at least some token people that don’t toe the line and hedge their bets
or put on that hard money orientated mean-face. It’s not as though those people
are unknown. It’s just that those people are denied an audience. I’d like to
see that change with a bit more tokenism of those activists with lived-experience happening. Sure, we’ll
get the uglies coughing disapproval, but I don’t see why torturers should rule
a convention! I’m not saying order them to leave the theatre, but you know… who
wants to hear them? Annoying sick fucks.

There are also things that really worry me about boarder protection in Australia, that was mentioned. That can mean the type of speaker I want to see isn't even allowed into my country. I guess I'm also worried for myself, not only for people I might ask to come here. So, if I go anywhere I'm checking in with that country's embassy first. Don't want to be booked in to speak in another country, flying all the way, then put into detention and forced to take psych drugs, because there's something on my passport that I don't know about that puts me in the same category as a terrorist!click here

Sunday, August 18, 2013

It has come
to my attention that psychiatrists STILL do not tell their patients that
there is a need to withdraw slowly from major tranquilisers/ neuroleptics/
‘anti-psychotics’.

This is a
breach of ‘informed consent’. Not giving this information to a patient, means a
person can be put through unnecessary suffering, which can be very
dangerous, even deadly. This suffering could be alleviated, if they were informed to
withdraw slowly, and, in ideal circumstances, aided and helped by a
psychiatrist or GP in doing this.

People who may stop taking psych drugs for very good reasons.
Quite often people don’t want to take them forever, because of the horrific
debilitating side-effects, and, because they don't really do what psychiatrists claim they should be doing.

People
often get told by psychiatrists that they have to take neuroleptics forever.
This is not reasonable, especially when there are so many side-effects, when
important social functions such as driving, reading, sex function, conversation and operating machinery are
hampered. Especially when there is Tardive Dyskinesia, or akinesia emerging,
and this harm caused by the drug is dismissed or ignored by the treating
psychiatrist… what is a person to do? People as young as 23 complain of feeling
like they have Alzheimer’s on these drugs. I felt that way myself, until I came
off them. I was sure my brains had eroded. No, it was the neuroleptic.
There’s also those 25 years that get torn from the lives of people on a
regimen of neuroleptics. Read enough and you’ll know all this, and that you
need to come off psych drugs slowly. But if your sight is blurring because of
the drugs and your thoughts are clouded and you’re chronically fatigued, then
how are you going to do that?

I’ve seen over a hundred psychiatrists in a 14 year period and none of
them informed me of the horrific withdrawal effects of neuroleptics. Yet
psychiatrists do know to withdraw people slowly from one neuroleptic before
getting a person to take another, or they should.

All
psychiatric, medical, clinical psychology, mental health and psychiatric drug
related websites should include something similar about slow withdrawal from drugs/
harm reduction.

Psychiatrists
should be informing all patients about drug related harm reduction. Australia
has got to make this mandatory for psychiatrists to do.

Hospitals
have systems in place for harm reduction for stimulant use.

It is
ridiculous that these hard drugs, which are major tranquilisers, have for so
long been written off in documents by ‘Mental Health’ organisations as not
having harmful withdrawal effects. It is ridiculous that these withdrawal
effects are seen as ‘symptoms of psychosis’. They are NOT.

I came off
Solian, from 200mg to nothing and my whole face and body twitched as parts of
me came back to life. I had a headache that lasted 2 weeks. At that time, 2009,
I didn’t know you were meant to come of these drugs slowly, but I’d been
medicalised by psychiatry since 1998!

It has
taken me 2 years, after slow reduction from Zuclopenthixol, to get my emotions
to stabilise and the Tourette’s caused by this drug to fade. I have had a lot
of support from friends, Intervoice, my tafe, colleagues and my partner, that
allow discussions of what had other years been denied.

I think
this INFORMING OF PATIENTS is essential and must be made MANDATORY. I think everyone
could agree to that, in the very least of things that need to be done, to stop
psychiatric abuse, that government could put some legislation in to make
certain that this occurs.

There are
documents that have said this pressure on people’s minds/bodies, of quickly
withdrawing, has been a factor in many horrific shootings by youth, that have
happened in the USA.

Certainly
drug/alcohol rehabilitation services are well-studied in how to safely withdraw
from other hard drugs.

So, please, see that this, is done. Make it mandatory for psychiatrists
to inform people to withdraw slowly, never quickly, and to do so under their
supervision, so that tablets are not quartered in a way that is unsafe. I don’t
want to see another person harmed unnecessarily by withdrawing too quickly from
drugs.

(If you are
attempting to do this, ask, remind and let your psychiatrist know why you need
to reduce your harmful drug. Do not talk of stopping the drug. Just talk about
reducing it. Then they are more likely to give you a prescription of a smaller
pill, I’ve found. If they refuse, keep asking, get back up, books, a lawyer, or an understanding friend.)

As an
individual please make enough conversation happen to grant MANDATORY HARM
REDUCTION INFORMATION TO BE GIVEN, BY ALL PSYCHIATRISTS IN REGARDS TO
PSYCHIATRIC DRUG WITHDRAWAL, TO THEIR PATIENTS. And please feel free to write emails
to RANZCP and the AMA letting them know why this must be made
mandatory.